Development of Herbal Hot Pack for Patients with Musculoskeletal System Disorders Jukkapun Kittamanorote, Sirinark Thamkom

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop a new herbal hot pack to replace the currently used costly hydrocollator pack or hot pack for patients receiving physiotherapy at Muang Pan Hospital, Lampang Province. It was aimed at enabling both patients and caretakers, under proper instruction of physiotherapy staff, to use the newly developed herbal hot pack for primary health care at home in order to reduce the workload and the expense of providing certain health service facilities and caretakers. The development process was based on the traditional knowledge of the preparation of luk prakob or hot herbal ball and the properties of hot packs. Based on the principle of physiotherapy, the hot pack should retain and transfer the heat to raise and maintain dermal temperature at the therapeutic level of 40-45°C for at least 20 minutes. In this pilot study, a herbal hot pack of standard size (30 cm2) was developed and its effects on the changes of the dermal temperature over time were recorded. It was found that the steamed herbal hot pack was able to keep the dermal temperature of the affected areas of the body at the therapeutic level for 20-30 minutes and the patients were very satisfied with the treatment. The herbal hot pack thus developed can therefore be used effectively to replace the pricey standard hydrocollator pack or hot pack.